"Nearly 200 refugees die of hunger and dehydration in Bama camp" - MSF

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), an international charity group, has said a catastrophic humanitarian emergency is unfolding at the Bama camp where 24,000 people have taken refuge.

According to the group, nearly 200 refugees who fled Boko Haram attacks, have died of starvation and dehydration in Bama, Borno state in the past month.

The Head of Doctors Without Borders Mission in Nigeria, Ghada Hatim said: "Bama is largely closed off. We have been told that people there, including children, have starved to death. One in five of the 15,000 children are suffering severe acute malnutrition. We see the trauma on the faces of our patients who have witnessed and survived many horrors," Hatim told the MSF.

The MSF team also said it counted 1,233 cemetery graves located near the camp which had been dug in the past year, disclosing that of those graves, 480 were for children.

READ: IDPs lament poor facilities in camps [Photos]

Meanwhile, National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) have said that the figures provided by the MSF were exaggerated.

Speaking with Pulse.ng, the Press Officer at the NEMA Headquarters in Abuja, Ezekiel Manzo said: "These people came from liberated towns surrounding Bama while others were rescued by the military from the Boko Haram insurgents. Most of them were not eating while they were with the terrorists because the military have succeeded in blocking their access to food.

"The number the group said is not true, it was exaggerated, this is because some of the IDPs are in hospitals receiving medical attention. Even the number of graves too," he said.

The Northeast Zonal Coordinator of NEMA, Mohammed Kannar, said that they are working with other aid agencies to ensure the health and wellbeing of the refugees.